"Not all artists make good money, Professor," They murmur with a sly expression, the hand they'd been gesturing with coming down to rest comfortably on their hip. "A credit for my thoughts, a hundred for my advice, and a thousand for my work. That'd be a dream."

He loved her. He misunderstood her so completely, he'd fallen in love with her as a result.

Even her humour reminds him of swallowing acid. The sheer thought makes him tap his leg, metal tapping against the marble tiling. When she smiles, his expression only sours. Once upon a time, he wanted power (he still does). These days, he wants dominion (he suspects nothing will be enough). With her, he wants peace (but ask him if he'd relinquish all they've done for this, and Johann would sooner let the Qunari take his good leg too).

Friendship partially meant being able to call someone out when they were being a big dum-dum, which was what he was currently doing with his self-martyrdom.

She's... pretty.

The Lady d'Aubray is... everything Roma's been told she would be. A lovely painting of lavenders and gemstones, impeccable manners, a smile to make any upstanding noble man go to war in her name. A woman worthy of love, as poets and playwrights and romantics and painters spend their nights and mornings bringing to life. From the first moment he's seen her face, she is easily everything he is meant to love.

And because of that, she isn't.

So simply, he knows — has a feeling, at least — that all this back and forth Lark commits to hides more. Suggests worse skeletons behind the closet, that she is an imperfect set of flaws and warning signs. Anastasia's had enough bards seduce him before the pointed tip of a dagger teases his back. He knows dances like these, been the player of many waltzes by now, all for the sake of becoming the one on top. But she smiles, and it could be a lie, but he'd take it all the same. Whatever he could get, however small or however far. She could point a knife to his throat and all he'd do is guide her hand to the swiftest strike.

As a wise man once said: Aw shit, here we go again.

"—You killed him. It's your fault." Repeated, once more, like a broken record, as Caprice continues to shake. It's accompanied by a pain in his head, a fog in his mind, a twisting sensation at the edges of his joints. There's something still deeply unnatural about the way he moves, certainly not in his right mind as his fingernails clench down against the gentle grip on his wrist. Digging into skin, a warning signal.

If you hadn't— if you'd waited a little longer, if you'd been normal, if you'd kept your mouth shut, there would've been two.

"In earliest recorded history, Pokémon and humans are referred to as separate tribes. Humans are the only mammal on Earth, whereas every Pokémon capable of breeding that we know of lays eggs. We don't have Moves, nor Abilities. You also can't catch another human in a Pokéball to make them your pal. Furthermore, in the oldest known myth--the Original Story--humans aren't mentioned once. However we came to be in this world, we were not created by Arceus... One theory suggests that we came from outer space!"

Said theory had been posted 10 years ago on 4chansey.org by an anonymous user, and had since circulated the internet almost as much as a certain excerpt about Vaporeon.

He could on a whim choose to sell his soul to the devil, and years later, blithely revoke the offer.

For as long as she could remember, every image in her mind she'd painted of Adahlena came with a coat of arms, the emblem of an eternal battle. In War, Victory. In Peace, Vigilance. In Death, Sacrifice. It was the only idea that made sense to her when she was young, the only explanation to soothe the abandoned child in her heart, believing that Adahlena's existence as some great warrior from the stories would mean the hole she'd left in her sister's lifetime had meaning.

Diana’s spirit only has three forms. In the morning, she’s a lamb. In the afternoon, a dove. At night, a blind asbestos animal that prefers to go unseen, digs corridors in the walls: I search hard for you and I don’t find you. Or I do. I find you like a needle in a haystack: or like a coin in a well: like a heartbeat in a distant star.